Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network registration system and a network device, and more particularly to such a system and a device allowing, for example, the user intending to register a communicator provided with a simple human interface to easily register the communicator in a wireless network without using other information technology (IT) equipment such as a personal computer.
Description of the Background Art
In recent years, radio communicators connectable to telecommunications networks, such as a mobile phone network and a public wireless network, are widely prevalent. Most of the present radio communicators, such as laptop computers and mobile phones, e.g. smartphones, include a graphical user interface. However, it is expected that communicators, such as wireless sensor devices, provided with a simple human interface may in the future be widely prevalent. For example, such communicators may be communicators having wireless function built in and provided with simple buttons and/or indicator lamps.
In order to initially make such a radio communicator join or participate in a wireless network, it may be necessary to register the identification of the radio communicator and/or authentication information for authenticating the radio communicator to an access point or an authentication server in the wireless network. Furthermore, it may be also necessary to register on the radio communicator the identification of the wireless network and authentication information for allowing the radio communicator to join the wireless network.
However, such registering operations may be complicated for general users not familiar with IT equipment and networks. In order to widely spread radio communicators into ordinary household, it is necessary to implement radio communicators allowing the user to simply conduct initial connection configuration on a network.
As a solution for the above-mentioned problem, U.S. Pat. No. 8,205,073 to Ishidoshiro teaches a method in which only depressing buttons provided on an access point and a terminal to be joined in a network causes information on initial network configuration to be transmitted between the access point and the terminal, thereby facilitating network registration.
In the method disclosed by Ishidoshiro, a registration request from a new terminal is acceptable only within a predetermined period of time following the depression on a button of an access point to thereby eliminate unauthorized registration conducted by a third-party terminal. That is to say, the predetermined period of time may be of a restrictively acceptable mode in which initial registration can be accepted. In the method, upon blinking/lighting of an indicator lamp included in an access point, the user may be aware of a current communication mode, the restrictively acceptable mode in which initial registration is permitted or a wireless communication mode in normal operation. The user can thereby recognize completion of the initial network configuration.
In contrast, if it happens, after having depressed the button of the access point, to receive a registration request only from a third-party terminal within the predetermined period of time, the access point may inappropriately register that third-party terminal. In this case, the user has to detect the incorrect registration by, e.g. inspecting a list of participating terminals or the like and then eliminate the inappropriately registered third-party terminal.
However, in a wireless mesh network which is expected to spread in recent years, ex post facto elimination of a incorrectly registered third-party terminal would be difficult.
Different from networks, such as a wireless local area network (LAN) widely prevalent at the moment, in which an access point and a terminal communicate in peer to peer fashion, the wireless mesh network is a telecommunications network in which a communicator establishes communication links with appropriate, adjacent nodes to thereby autonomously set up an optimal communication path or route. Thus in general, communicators forming the wireless mesh network have authentication information common to the network set up so as to enable, at any time, communication links to be established with appropriate, adjacent nodes. In the conventional type of networks with peer-to-peer communication, incorrect registration may be overcome by simply disabling the incorrect peer-to-peer link, so that the incorrect registration may have little influence on other terminals. However, in wireless mesh networks, incorrect registration leads to authentication information common to the network leaking to the third-party terminal which has incorrectly been connected, so that the incorrect registration may heavily damage other terminals. In that case, it would be required, for example, to update the authentication information on all the authorized terminals forming the network.